Review of research into urban experimentation in the fields of sustainability transitions and environmental governance

Abstract

In recent years, scholars from diverse research communities have become greatly interested in the experimental turn within the social sciences and economics. A rapidly emerging field within the literature on experimentation is investigating urban experimentation to promote sustainability transitions. Emphasising the situatedness of experiments, such publications are shedding light on the particularities of places and spaces. Experimentation conducted in real-world settings seeks to combine purposeful intervention with observation and reflection. In the study of urban experimentation, various disciplinary lenses and conceptual frameworks have emerged, especially in the two literatures on sustainability transitions and environmental governance. This has fostered a more complex, differentiated understanding of experimentation. The literature review presented here seeks to elaborate current lines of inquiry on urban experimentation in order to gain insight into how experimentation shapes urban sustainability transitions. By outlining the complementary and contrasting nature of different academic perspectives, it is possible to identify avenues of future research and encourage dialogue between the different research communities.